Disney bringing back Monsters and Muppets

Monsters and Muppets are coming back to a theater near you. At a press briefing at The Walt Disney Co. headquarters in Burbank on Thursday, studios chairman Rich Ross said Disney's Pixar division is creating a sequel to "Monsters Inc." that will hit theaters in November 2012.

The original film from 2001 grossed $529 million worldwide. Ross also said the studio was about to give the go-ahead to a new movie featuring the Muppets which will introduce a new character named Walter. "He's in felt and fur rehab now as we build him," Ross said.

It was not clear when the movie would hit theaters. But he said there will be plenty of cameos, as with all Muppet movies. So watch for Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, too. James Bobin, the creator of "The Flight of the Conchords" TV series, is set to direct.

The announcements were among several made during a presentation of the studio's upcoming slate of films. Disney is in the midst of selling off its Miramax Films division as it focuses on family-oriented fare from Marvel, Pixar, its own studio and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks unit.

Among other future films is a retelling of the Winnie the Pooh story using hand-drawn animation; a Tim Burton-led stop-motion animation movie called "Frankenweenie" about a boy's revival of his lost dog; and another Pixar movie called "John Carter of Mars" about a man who goes through a portal to the red planet as imagined by author Edgar Rice Burroughs. "Wall-E" writer Andrew Stanton of Pixar has been tapped to handle the otherworldly live action picture starring Taylor Kitsch. The movie is set to hit theaters in 2012.

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Walt Disney Pictures Alice In Wonderland Opens In Japan

Walt Disney Pictures hit movie “Alice In Wonderland” opened in Japan on April 17th and managed to bring in 700 million yen ($7.5 million USD) just that day! That’s double what “Avatar” brought in opening day in Japan.

Did you know that both director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp promoted “Alice In Wonderland” in Tokyo on March 22nd for the Japanese premiere? Very cool!

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Amusingly twisted 'Kick-Ass' too raw for kids

Don't be fooled by the TV ads or the trailer: "Kick-Ass" is not for the PG-13 crowd. It's rated R for a reason lots of reasons.

And we're talking "hard R," Quentin Tarantino territory. You'd think from the way that the film is being marketed that it's.

A goofy, lighthearted comedy about nerdy kids who don colorful latex outfits to fight crime.

"Kick-Ass" is a lot darker and meaner than that. We not only hear F-bombs but the hated C-word. Limbs are sliced off, torsos are impaled, heads are battered.Yeah, we've heard and seen it all before, but here's the twist: The curses and bloody violence are coming from an 11-year-old girl.

So consider yourself warned: Many moviegoers are going to be offended. But if you forget the way it's being marketed and take it for what it is — an outrageously violent, humorously twisted adaptation of a comic book — "Kick-Ass" lives up to its name.

It's demented, in much the same way that Tarantino's "Kill Bill" movies and "Inglourious Basterds" (recently a best-picture Oscar nominee, you may recall) — or Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight," for that matter — are demented. But it's in a highly entertaining way if you're willing to view the movie with the comic-book sensibility with which it was made. At various times it's intensely suspenseful, wildly exciting and uproariously funny.

Our story begins with geeky high-school comic-book lover Dave (Aaron Johnson) deciding it's time to become a real-life crime fighter. So he sends away for a costume, puts it on, takes to the streets and ... gets his butt kicked. But that's just the start, and soon he becomes a media phenomenon and youth-culture hero known simply as Kick-Ass.

He's not the only masked marvel in town. There's also a father-and-daughter vigilante team, Damon (Nicolas Cage), or Big Daddy, and 11-year-old Mindy (Chloe Grace Moretz, who steals the picture), or Hit-Girl. They're on a no-holds-barred mission to destroy the empire of crime kingpin Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong of "Sherlock Holmes"), and that means lots and lots of carnage. D'Amico's teenage son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, better known as McLovin'), decides to help dad by posing as a do-gooder himself; thus, Red Mist is born.

Of all of these characters, good or bad, with the possible exception of Big Daddy, Hit-Girl is the toughest. Given that she's a peanut who, with her purple wig and schoolgirl skirt, looks like she'd be more at home at a fifth-grade costume birthday party, that's pretty funny in itself.

One of the film's comic highlights comes when she's whaling on a group of armed thugs. She leaps and tumbles around the room like an acrobat, using various weapons to slice, dice and otherwise mutilate bad guys who are no match for her. What makes the scene so funny is this: While she's doing all of this bodily harm, the chipper theme song for the old kiddie TV show "Banana Splits" — "tra-la-la, tra-la-la-la ..." — plays on the soundtrack.

Sick? Absolutely. There are other little pop-culture references thrown in. When Damon dresses up as Big Daddy, in what looks like a Batman costume, he changes his voice pattern to speak in the halting, dramatic, cornball style Adam West used as Batman in the '60s TV show.

But Hit-Girl is clearly the star of this show. There's a fine line between what's amusingly irreverent and what's offensive, and many moviegoers are likely to find "Kick-Ass" crosses it. But you can argue that this is the case with the work of lots of filmmakers, whether it's the Coen brothers or the Farrelly brothers. We all draw the line somewhere, and, despite some of its questionable aspects, I found "Kick-Ass" to be a blast.

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First Poster For The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

As the title says folks, the first poster has now been released for Disney’s other big-budget live action film, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE, and it rocks! If nothing else, the fact that this film stars an on-form Nicolas Cage, going head to head with Alfred Molina should be enough to get bums on seats. And despite my high hopes for that other live action Disney movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, dare I say that I think this one…looks..better?

That’s an affirmative, and the poster isn’t bad either. It’s more a teaser than a full-on one sheet and it features Cage’s character, Balthazar Blake, sporting a pretty cool looking Dragon ring. Take a look and let me know what you think

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Shrek producers left red faced after authorising 'saucy' men's magazine shoot

Barely-clothed models appear alongside Shrek, Princess Fiona, Donkey and The Ginger Bread Man in a spread that was designed to promote the fourth instalment of the hugely successful animated franchise. But instead DreamWorks executives admitted they regretted allowing.

The family-friendly characters to be used in the highly-sexual campaign in the latest issue of an American fashion magazine. The spread in VMan, a men's magazine, was authorised ahead of the world premiere of the series fourth movie, Shrek: Forever And After, due to be released in the spring.

In one shot Donkey, voiced by Eddie Murphy in the films, is pictured snuggling up to a lingerie-clad model while a shirtless man lies on a bed in the background, in an apparent reference to a ménage a trois between the characters.

In other photographs, Shrek, played by Mike Myers in the films, and Princess Fiona, who is voiced by Cameron Diaz, pose with male and female models wearing barely-there leather and denim outfits.

The Ginger Bread man, meanwhile, holds a lolly-pop for the model who strikes a suggestive pose. While in another, a mostly bare-chested model wearing a cross feeds grapes to Puss in Boots, who is voiced by Antonio Banderas.

Executives at DreamWorks Animation and Paramount, were left shocked when they saw the published works appearently expecting a less provocative, more reverential treatment of its most valuable characters.

“While we do respect Vman's creative vision, the shoot did not turn out the way originally envisioned when the idea was first presented by the magazine," said a Paramount spokesman.

"In hindsight, we would have declined to include the Shrek characters in such a magazine spread."

Jacob Brown, the New York-based editor of the magazine, declined to comment.

Vman is thought to have initially offered its cover to Shrek but when Paramount executives declined that treatment the magazine's editors then suggested an inside spread.

Paramount executives – with visions of a successful "Simpsons"-style marketing ploy dancing in their collective heads – gave Vman the green light.

During discussions between the magazine and Paramount, as the distributor of the animated sequel, magazine editors likened their vision to the Harper's Bazaar photo spread of Homer, Bart and the rest of the Simpsons two years ago.

Released just ahead of "The Simpsons Movie," Harper's featured the cartoon cast wearing Chanel, Hermes, Versace and Louis Vuitton – without the intrusion of human models. The spread essentially was elegant and inoffensive.

The studio said it would not pursue legal action against the magazine.

In the fourth film, Shrek finds himself in an alternate version of Far Far Away, where ogres are hunted, Rumpelstiltskin is king and Shrek and Fiona have never met.

The movie has Shrek trying to save his friends, restore his world and reclaim his one True Love.

Cameron Diaz last week said Shrek fans would enjoy watching the lovable green ogre and Princess Fiona fall in love all over again in the fourth movie.

"What I love is with Shrek and Fiona, it's their love story all over again – you get to watch these two characters fall in love all over again," she said.

"That's what was so beautiful and captivating in the first film. These two, and how they come to know they are for one another, and true love. You hope it does exist."

The films, which hit the big screens in 2001, were recently voted the best children’s film ever made and is thought to have grossed more than £1.4 billion at the global box office.

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Interview - Chloe Moretz Kicks Ass

In the superhero flick, Kick-Ass, there are the good, the bad and the brutal. As the 11-year-old vigilante, Hit-Girl, Chloe Grace Moretz gets to play all three in one character opposite Nicolas Cage's Big Daddy. You'd never expect that range from the mild-mannered 13-year-old relaxing at a downtown Toronto hotel. But she is, indeed, capable of defining the cute but incredibly foul-mouthed girl-gone-wild in Kick-Ass, which opens Friday.

Smiling sheepishly, Moretz admitted during the interview that she's been getting that reaction a lot lately, not to mention protests from a few family groups upset over her provocative performance in Matthew Vaughn's film based on the Mark Millar comic.

Certainly, the age-inappropriate fuss is nothing new for a young actress. Dakota Fanning went through the same controversy when naysayers protested her graphic portrayal of a child rape victim in 2007's Hounddog. More than 30 years ago, Jodie Foster took flak for playing an adolescent prostitute in Taxi Driver. Some things never change.

"I am an actress and I was playing somebody who was raised to do what she does," said Moretz, who shot the movie in Hamilton, Ont., Toronto, New York and London.

She'd rather discuss acting opposite movie star Cage, and facing the challenge of playing the ultimate adolescent street fighter. She has especially fond memories of Cage, describing him as gracious and kind.

"He was a good example for me. On set, he was really nice to everybody all of the time."

Preparing for her active Hit-Girl part was something else again: There were gruelling martial arts and gymnastic sessions. "I did that for six months," she said. And while filming in Toronto for a month, she trained at the Toronto School of Circus Arts to learn movement.

The peculiar thing is that Moretz's Hit-Girl isn't the headliner in the film. Kick-Ass is the name of a wannabe superhero who is a high-school super-dud by the name of Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson). When he costumes up in a bid to do the right thing, he's nearly murdered, but recovers, then crosses paths with real crime fighters Hit-Girl (Moretz) and Big Daddy (Cage).

Their single-minded mission is to bring down New York's crime boss, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), by eliminating his drug-syndicate henchmen.

Since Big Daddy's been training Hit-Girl for nearly a decade in the lethal craft of killing, we discover quickly that the child's a barbarous assassin willing and able to eliminate all in her way, with extreme and bloody efficiency.

With Kick-Ass as their quasi-mascot, Hit-Girl and Big Daddy close in on D'Amico, with only D'Amico's son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), posing as another wannabe superhero, in their way.

While the fight sequences are jarringly violent, Kick-Ass, the movie, does have a sense of humour about itself, with enough cloaked, or not-so-cloaked, comic book, TV and movie references to keep even the most obsessed pop-culture fanatics amused.

Still, Moretz's sprightly portrayal of the ruthless killer is the main talking point for fans. "I don't like that so much," Moretz admitted.

Born in Atlanta, Ga., Moretz credits her boldness to the fact she grew up with four older brothers, and her drive to be an actress. At six, she moved to L.A. with her family and booked a few TV guest spots on The Guardian and Heart of the Beholder.

But she really made a name for herself by portraying the daughter in the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror with Ryan Reynolds. She also showed up in the films Big Momma's House 2 and (500) Days of Summer, and, most notably, on the popular TV shows My Name Is Earl, Desperate Housewives and as a recurring character on Dirty Sexy Money.

This year, the actress had a co-starring part in the just-released Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and will be featured in the upcoming live-action movie, Jack and the Beanstalk.

So far, the pre-release buzz surrounding her Hit-Girl performance has opened up more opportunities. Moretz has signed to co-star in the thriller, The Fields, and is set to do an Elizabeth Banks segment of a comedy feature. She says she's also looking forward to filming Martin Scorsese's historical drama, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

And wait until those concerned parents' organizations get a load of Moretz's role as the down-and-dirty kid vampire Abby in Let Me In, a remake of the Swedish terror trip, Let The Right One In, based on the novel.

"Our movie will be our version of the book," said Moretz of the film set to open in the fall.

Meanwhile, the actress is looking forward to her busy career, which she hopes will include her family. Her 23-year-old brother, Trevor, is her acting coach, and Moretz said that, some day, she wants her siblings to help put together a film project.

Her older brothers, she confessed, continue to be her biggest supporters and her main protectors."Yeah," Moretz said, "I feel sorry for the boys when I start dating,"

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